The February meeting of the San Diego Democratic Club (SDDC) featured a lengthy, heated discussion with San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre. He addressed many community concerns, specifically the city of San Diego’s $1.37 billion deficit following the underfunding of the pension system.

After swearing in 14 members to the SDDC executive board, Aguirre fielded numerous questions from a packed room at the Joyce Beers Community Center on Feb. 24 and reiterated his role as city attorney.

“One of the hardest things that I have had to do is to change the perspective of the people at City Hall about the role of the city attorney,” said Aguirre. “The people at City Hall, the city manager, the mayor, the elected officials, the city council, they do not decide who provides the legal advice to the council, to the mayor, to the manager. The people of San Diego make that decision.”

The first issue of the night Aguirre addressed concerned the San Diego Union-Tribune’s article, which was published that day regarding the 2200 Club being ordered to stop adult activity by his office. He said he was not aware of the situation and would look into it.

“One of the things I will promise to you in the future in the City Attorney’s Office is that when things happen in the future, that when there is something going to be in the newspaper, it will be brought to my attention,” said Aguirre.

A question was posed regarding the establishment of a GLBT task force for the city. Aguirre said his goal and plan was to have one advisory group set up with representatives from all community groups.

When asked about creating a civil rights division within the City Attorney’s Office, Aguirre said he was in the process of accomplishing that.

“I am extremely interested in hiring GLBT attorneys not just to work on civil rights issues or gay issues, but we need to do a much better job,” said Aguirre. “I cannot do a good job as city attorney unless I have a fair representation of people in the office, period.”

One concerned audience member asked Aguirre if he thought the aggressive manner in which he has interacted with City Hall officials would prevent a solution rather than alleviate the financial mess San Diego is in right now.

Aguirre responded by explaining in great detail the origination of the pension deficit problem. He explained that in 1996 and 2002, the city council underfunded the system while increasing the benefits paid out. These actions, according to Aguirre, resulted in much of the debt the pension and city has accrued today.

“When you receive a city service and you give a benefit under Charter Section 99, you have to pay for it, and we didn’t do it. We didn’t do that with regard to 13,000 years of pension credits,” said Aguirre. “They didn’t pay what the pension credits cost.”

Aguirre specifically targeted Mayor Dick Murphy and Councilmember Scott Peters for their involvement and said they are “100 percent focused on their defense” at the moment.

Aguirre has proposed an interim solution called a receivership, where a judge would appoint a professional who will oversee the pension system rather than the current pension board.

“The solution that I put forward is we shake off that portion of it [the pension] that simply was not legally created,” said Aguirre. “The rest of it we do whatever has to be done to fund it. If we have to have a tax increase, I support it. That’s the way to do it in my mind.”

The main issue at hand, Aguirre said, is to get the city of San Diego back on its feet.

“I’m not here to put people in jail. That’s not my role. I want to get my city back into the game. To me, I don’t want to sit around and talk about how we’re hitting the bottom. I want to talk about us bumping up against the top,” said Aguirre.

Rabbi Laurie Coskey, from the Interfaith Committee for Workers Justice in San Diego, and Jesse Durfee, past SDDC president and now chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party, also spoke at the meeting.

Coskey detailed issues facing low-wage workers in the U.S.

“There are too many people who are working full time and poor in San Diego without healthcare, without benefits, and they are truly invisible to us,” said Coskey. “When you give family healthcare to someone who has none, which is the commitment of our Democratic Party, you know that their lives and the future of their children are going to change forever.”

Durfee discussed demographics concerning registered voters in the county. He said San Diego County is not far from becoming a Democratic county, with 525,000 Democrats compared to 605,000 Republicans, while 330,000 people classify as “decline to state.” Statistics have shown that most in this category tend to lean Democratic.

Durfee explained the state of California is predominantly Democratic as well as the city of San Diego, but Democrats have the potential to be the majority party in the county as well.

“It would be nice to live in a blue city in a blue county in a blue state,” Durfee said, “rather than a blue city, in a red county in a blue state.”